Tuesday, April 30, 2013

If only you knew how shocked I was! Scouting through the internet I recently came across a blog
posting titled Lewandowsky: study “Useless” unless authors demonstrate “data
integrity”, at http://climateaudit.org/2012/09/12/lewandowsky-study-useless-unless-authors-demonstrate-data-integrity/.The blog posting is written by Steve McIntyre.Apparently Lewandowsky, in reference to the
2003 Survey of Climate Scientists, accuses me of violating “all internet survey
methodological standards by not recording dates, times, and IP numbers of
respondents”.

Just for the record, I
would like to point out that many people working in institutes have no choice
but to use the static IP of the institute’s firewall.I doubt they are aware or even care. But this would mean that if I sampled 100
scientists at 10 institutes, likely in the recorded responses there would be
only 10 IP addresses.Also, it is not
difficult to manipulate time and date on a PC. So, please, for all of the conspiracy
theory (of any persuasion) critics of the surveys of climate scientists, try to
know a little of what you speak before you speak.Apparently Lewandowsky complained that there was “no way to check or
verify the integrity of the data” and therefore the data was probably
“useless”. Lewandowsky said that the study should not have been published
“without the authors demonstrating the integrity of their data”. Steve McIntrye goes on to point out that the work of Lewandowsky is not without blemish.

Monday, April 29, 2013

The following text has been sent in by Geert
Jan van Oldenborgh, Jos de Laat, Juerg Luterbacher, William Ingramand
Tim Osborn:

Claim of solar influence is on thin ice: are 11-year
cycle solar minima associated with severe winters in Europe?

Eight months year ago, news articlesclaimed that
scientists had discovered a strong connection between severe winters in central
Europe and the 11-year sunspot cycle. Theywerebased on an article by Sirocko et al, ‘Solar
influence on winter severity in central Europe’ (Geophys. Res. Lett. 39 (2012) L16704),
which we shall call SBP.Fifty years ago, Lorenz showed
that a large part of the variability of winter weather is due to deterministic
chaos, i.e., unpredictable fluctuations in atmospheric circulation,
particularly in the westerly flow. The role of external forcings (including
solar activity) in determining the warmth of individual winters is expected,
therefore, to be rather minor – or even negligible if the forcing changes are
weak. This has indeed been found in many review articles. SBPwas therefore at
odds with the current scientific consensus that the role of the
sunspot cycle in the climate is small. We investigatedwhy SBP
had such unexpectedresults and came up with a number of
fundamental issues with this paper Our results have just been published in Environmental Research Letters, http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024014
(open access)

Thursday, April 25, 2013

It seems as if the German words Kindergarten, Angst, and Blitzkrieg which have entered the English language will be joined by another one, Energiewende. The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies does not bother to translate the term. It published a short report under title 'Current German energy policy - the Energiewende: a UK and climate change perspective'. Here is the brief:

This comment considers German energy policy, as set out in the Energiewende, as seen from the perspective of attempts to reduce CO2 emissions, and the ambitions of the EU to be considered global leaders on this issue. It argues that the nuclear moratorium is irrational and will significantly increase damaging emissions; and that policies of promoting renewables, while preferring coal over gas on grounds of cost, are inconsistent.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Over the past couple of days I had few
twitter exchanges about the term ‘carbon bubble’. These were triggered by a
(rhetorical?) question from Maarten Hajer who asked: "'Carbon bubble' is quite a catchy new
discourse. Can this language turn the tables?"

The reference was to this Guardian
story, printed on the title page on Friday 19 April (Carbon bubble will plunge the world into
another financial crisis).

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Recently, "Nature Climate Change" published a new study about how climate change may cause more turbulence in air travel over the
Atlantic. Obviously, the study raised attention and was published all over the place (the world maybe?), also in Germany on spiegel-online. I was asked by a journalist from Associated Press what that might mean in terms of what kind of impact that will have on people’s habits. He said that environmentalists have struggled for years to get people to curb their flying habits and if there is any chance that a bit turbulence might make the problem a bit more concrete for flyers?This here is what he made out the story, with a quote selected from my written answer. Here is my long version:

Thursday, April 4, 2013

With the apt headline "Climate Maverick retires from NASA", the New York Times dedicates an article to the retirement of the maybe world's most famous climate researcher, James Hansen. Roger Pielke jr also shares interesting thoughts and finds respectful words for "James Hansen: Responsible Scientist and Advocate". I guess, one calls it the "hermeneutic perspective" which enables Roger to shed a new perspective on the old discussion of science and advocacy.

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